unmountable boot volume

[sockmonkey]

whenever i try to boot up xp i get that now. it gets to the little animated logo, and then blue screens saying more or less that the volume is unmountable. can i rewrite the MBR or some other such thing to fix that? its xp pro.

[redduc900]

Here's a couple of things I can think of offhand...

1. Your computer uses an UDMA hard disk controller, and you're using a standard 40-wire connector cable to connect the UDMA drive to the controller instead of the required 80-wire, 40-pin cable...and your BIOS settings are configured to force the faster UDMA modes. If this is the case, replace the 40-wire cable with an 80-wire UDMA cable....and in the BIOS, load the 'Fail-Safe' default settings and then reactivate the most frequently used options such as USB Support.

2. The file system could possibly be damaged and can't be mounted. If this is the case, restart the computer to the Recovery Console, and then use the chkdsk /r command to repair the volume. After you repair the volume, check your hardware to isolate the cause of the file system damage.

If you need help using the Recovery Console, here's a link to a MSKB article which explains it's usage...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q229716